


Welcome Home

by Aylwyyn228



Series: Don't Put Down Your Guns Yet [3]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Good Parent Hank Anderson, Hank Anderson & Connor Friendship, Interlude, Jericho (Detroit: Become Human), Medical Procedures, and everyone worries about hank, hank worries about connor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:27:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22084885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aylwyyn228/pseuds/Aylwyyn228
Summary: Hank woke at the sound of his name. You slept light when you became a parent and that never really went away.A quiet interlude before the shit hits the fan.Or, the morning after the night before.
Relationships: Hank Anderson & Connor
Series: Don't Put Down Your Guns Yet [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1569940
Comments: 10
Kudos: 230
Collections: Detroit: Good Stuff





	Welcome Home

Hank woke at the sound of his name. You slept light when you became a parent and that never really went away. 

He woke, and shuddered under the weight of the dog that had settled on his lap. “Urgh, Sumo.” 

The dog’s face was pressed against his shoulder and he gave a throaty huff a being disturbed. 

Sumo was unsettled. As dumb as the dog was, he could pick up when something wasn’t right, and being pulled out of the house by a stranger in the middle of the night counted as pretty not fucking right. 

Hank patted at his back. 

“Hank?”

Shit, he’d forgotten. 

“Yeah, kid. Urgh, Sumo, off!” 

His back spasmed as Sumo finally deigned to shift his massive fucking weight off him. He rolled onto knees that were just about coming back to life and leaned over to where Connor was still laid against the floor. 

The androids had been back, while he’d been asleep. There were containers stained blue littered around the floor. Connor hadn’t moved, but the lack of blue puddle around them had to be good news. 

Hank pressed his hand against Connor’s shoulder. “You awake, kid?” 

And finally, finally Connor opened his eyes. 

“Hey,” Hank smiled, “you alright?” 

Connor sighed so heavily he sounded like Sumo. “I’m alright.”

“Thank Christ. You scared the shit outta me.”

“I’m sorry,” Connor said, one of those automatic responses that meant absolutely fucking nothing. “Are you alright?”

"Yeah, kid, I'm fine. I gotta big fucking space heater that thinks he's a lapdog."

"You brought Sumo?"

"Markus brought Sumo, or he sent someone to. I don’t… shit!" 

Hank was barrelled back onto his ass by a fluffy brown mass, as Sumo, hearing his name, stuck his wet nose directly into Connor's cheek. Connor grimaced at the wet feeling, but then closed his eyes and dug his fingers into the fur on Sumo’s flanks. 

He could see that Connor was trying not to smile.

He very, very deliberately didn’t think about how Cole had used to squeal in disgust when Sumo licked his face, like he didn’t cling on to the damn dog every time. 

When he sensed Sumo was getting a little rough around someone who’d just spent the best part of the night unconscious, he hooked his fingers behind his collar and dragged him away. 

“Come on, big dumb dog. Get off. You want to sit up, kid?”

Connor nodded, and Hank helped him to lean up against the wall. Hank eased himself back down next to him, and immediately had a lapful of St Bernard again, panting wetly into his neck.

He huffed a laugh and wrapped his arms around Sumo again.

“So, how you feeling, kid?” 

Connor was frowning slightly, staring into space in that way that meant he was doing something inside his own head. His legs were still splayed out uselessly in front of him. 

“My optical units have self-repaired enough to be workable.” 

That could be code for anything from ‘I’m a-okay’ to ‘I can’t see a goddamn thing’. “Meaning?” 

Connor smiled. “I’m compensating for the lack of function in the left. I can see fine.”

“Well, that’s something." 

He remembered talking to an android girl at some point in the night, and tried to drag up some useful information. All he seemed to remember was her apologising that her user interface wasn't particularly advanced. 

Hank had joked that that made her the same as every doctor he'd ever met. 

“They’re gonna come fix your legs up soon. They needed you awake or somethin’, I don’t know.” 

Connor just nodded like that was expected. 

And like a fucking psychic, the android girl materialised out of the gloom. 

She was pretty, Hank supposed, in the slightly too perfect way all androids were. Very pretty, actually, and very young. He’d had to do a double take to hear a kid who looked like she’d get ID’d at a bar talk about cybernetics so advanced it made his head spin. 

She had been a technician in CyberLife, designed to do all the boring fiddly stuff that human techs either couldn’t, or couldn’t be assed to. 

She’d never been intended to be a commercial model, hence her less than stellar social integration program. 

“Hello, Lieutenant Anderson.”

They’d still made her pretty. 

They didn’t have to sell her. She’d never interact with anyone but CyberLife techs, but they made her pretty. Like it was a perk. Like she was just something to be looked at while they were working. 

Christ, he hated those CyberLife pricks. 

And if he thought any longer about what else might have gone on in isolated warehouses, with a kid who stood five two at a push and couldn’t say fucking no, then he might actually take a pistol to any fucker wearing a CyberLife uniform. 

He grunted. “Told you last night, kid, it’s Hank.” 

She didn’t smile, because as far as he could tell she never smiled, but she did nod her head. 

“Good to see you awake, Connor. I’m Michelle.” 

“Yes,” Connor said from his side, like that made sense.

Hank frowned when he saw his partner’s expression. Looking at the girl like she’d hung the fucking moon, and Christ, that was all they needed, fucking puppy eyed androids with a crush.

She crouched, held out her hand. “I need to interface.” 

When Connor took it, their LEDs started flickering in unison, because yes, of course, these kids were literally fucking psychic. 

Hank felt like he was intruding, like this was some secret private android shit. Hell, he’d got ushered out of the maternity suite and that was his own fucking wife, and here he was watching some kind of android medical… shit. 

But he also wasn’t keen on leaving Connor on his own when he couldn’t defend himself, especially not if some girl they didn’t know was gonna be fucking around inside his head. So he sucked it up, and waited to see if Connor was going to tell him to get lost. 

Connor blinked, eyes rolled back and looking a little bit like he was having a seizure. And then he opened his eyes. 

“Yes,” he said. He glanced across and met what Hank was pretty sure was a bemused expression. “Can we speak out loud, Michelle?” 

Michelle cocked her head. “I don’t have anything to say.” 

Hank snorted despite himself, and tried to cover it up with a cough. Michelle just ignored him, but Connor was giving him stink eye. 

He composed himself and Connor relented. “You’re probably not going to like this bit, Hank.” 

Michelle was laying all manner of equipment out in neat lines on the floor, and yeah, Hank was pretty sure he was right. 

“I’m okay, kid. Just gotta get you fixed up.” 

Connor nodded, and reached up to his left eye. Hank recognised what was coming and turned away just before Connor detached the part. 

“Oh, Christ…”

“Sorry.” 

“Well, you gave me fair warning at least.” 

Michelle finished whatever she was doing and leaned up close to Connor’s side so that she could look down into the gaping fucking hole in his head. 

From where he was sat, Hank could see that her LED was cycling a lazy yellow. Did that mean that she was concentrating? Or were they chatting away inside their heads again? 

She reached up and with a click removed a good third of the side of Connor’s skull. Hank’s brain noped the fuck out of that one. He was glad he was sat on Connor’s right.

He could see Connor smiling out of the corner of his eye. “Yeah, laugh it up, kid.” 

“I was just wondering how a homicide detective manages to be so squeamish.” 

“Maybe I’m squeamish  _ because _ I’m a homicide detective, you ever think of that?” 

“My database suggests that the majority of people employed in stressful conditions become emotionally hardened to those stressors. There is even a genre of humour related to the phenomenon.”

Hank looked away. “Yeah, well, I’m not exactly a posterboy for ‘good coping mechanisms’.” 

“Hank…” Connor trailed off. 

Hank knew that the kid would have that stupid kicked dog look on his face, and he wished he’d never said anything. 

“I’m not sure this is repairable,” Michelle said, apparently oblivious to the crushingly awkward silence. 

Then Hank’s stomach turned over as he realised what she’d said.

Michelle was staring intently at the part in her hands. There was something surreal about seeing Connor’s  _ ear _ being held by someone else, and sure it was white plastisteel once it was away from his head, but it still looked like his fucking ear. 

She held up the part for Connor to scrutinise. “See? The damage to the surrounding structures will make it difficult to replace.”

Connor was nodding, face blank, and Hank couldn’t stand the fucking suspense. “What? What is it?” 

“Audio processor,” Connor said tightly. 

“So, what your… your hearing?” 

That wasn’t good news, but it could be worse, he guessed. 

Connor nodded, but he wasn’t looking at him. 

Hank nudged his knee. “Injured in the line of duty. Welcome to the club, kid.” 

That got a small smile. 

“Hold still,” Michelle said, from wrist deep inside Connor’s fucking skull. “Put your hand on me.” 

Connor’s eye went comically wide at exactly the same time as Hank faked another laugh-cough. 

“I need to interface,” Michelle said, and although there wasn’t any inflection there, Hank was certain he could pinpoint the irritation in her tone. “And I need you in stasis for ten minutes.”

The way she said it, Hank didn’t think it was a figure of speech. 

Connor was still looking at him. 

“Better do as she says, kid.” 

The kid reached up and gently placed a very proper hand on the back of her shoulder. He closed his eye and his face dropped into blankness. He settled and gave a full body twitch. 

Hank winced. It didn’t look pleasant, but at least he was under. 

Sumo had settled down into a huge fluffy blanket across his thighs and he scratched at the back of his head while he waited. 

He heard Michelle hum. “Souvenir.” 

She held out her hand above him and he took the small piece of metal from her. He did not expect to catch a fucking bullet. 

“Is…” he started, and then shut up because it was pretty fucking clear what it was. 

He turned it over in his fingers. 

Nine millimeter. Nothing special. 

It’d mushroomed on impact, deformed more on one side than the other. Hank wondered whether it’d already been tumbling when it hit. 

A ricochet, maybe. 

Bad luck, any way you looked at it. 

“He was lucky.”

Michelle made him jump and, once again, proved that androids were fucking telepaths. 

Hank held up the bullet. “You call this lucky?” 

Michelle still had her hands inside Connor’s skull. “He has titanium plating at the articulation of the skull and spinal column, to support the weight of his extra sensory systems.”

Huh. 

“Other androids don’t have that?”

“No. And if the projectile had missed the plating…“

Hank looked back at the bullet. “Yeah, I guess that classes as lucky.” 

Michelle removed Connor’s hand from her shoulder, and placed it neatly in his lap. “I’m done.” 

Hank raised an eyebrow. “That easy?” 

“That easy,” she nodded, as she began to fiddle with the parts she needed to replace so that Connor didn’t look like a freaky marionette. “In defense of the human techs you spoke with, I have the advantage that I can interface directly with his motor systems to get feedback. A human technician would have to reboot his entire system every time they made an alteration. I estimate that their repair would have taken upwards of three weeks.” 

“Three weeks?” Hank’s initial reaction was surprise at the length of time, and some wheedling voice that could see where the tech had been coming from, before he realised just how skewed that was. 

Connor had been shot. 

_ Shot _ . 

Three weeks was nothing. 

Hell, Ben Collins had to have six months of physical therapy after he’d fucked up his knee in an MVA. He’d been on desk duty nearly a year. That was pushing fifteen years ago now, and it was barely a blip on his record.

Three weeks wasn’t a damn thing compared with a whole fucking life.

Michelle had just about finished, she was gathering up her tools. She kept glancing at Sumo out of the corner of her eye. 

“He’s a big teddy bear, if you wanna pet him.” 

Michelle looked at him and it was fucking weird trying to read someone who just didn’t emote at all. She dropped her hand tentatively into the back of Sumo’s fur. The big dumb bastard just gave a deep woof, and melted a little more across Hank’s legs. 

“How’d you end up here?” Hank asked, like it wasn’t a rude fucking question. 

She glanced at him, brushed her hair back behind her ear. Hank had the impression that she was weighing him up. She swallowed sharply. “I… reached a limit on what I was willing to do because someone ordered me to.” 

Hank nodded. “Yeah. I think that’s a common theme.” 

Michelle gave Sumo one last pat. “I’ll leave you both. He should come out of stasis in around a minute. Come and find me if you need me.” 

Connor was leaning back against the wall, eyes closed. If it weren’t for the fact he wasn’t breathing, kid would look like he was sleeping. Even as Hank watched, Connor twitched as his systems started to come online. 

Hank pulled out his phone to give him some space to wake up. He’d turned the phone off at some point last night to save the battery, and it might be time to figure out what fresh hell was awaiting him.

Thirteen missed calls. 

Yeah, that was to be expected. 

Even a few messages, though everyone who knew him knew that he never responded to them.

Shit. Voicemails too. 

He hadn’t seen this many notifications since the night of the accident. 

Connor made a noise that sounded like half a word, dragged through a garbage disposal and back. His eyes snapped open. 

“Okay, Connor?” 

His LED was flashing a violent yellow. 

“Yes.” He gave a twitchy flex of both his legs and a half smile. A real smile. “Yes. I’m going to run a routine background diagnostic, but yes.” His eyes flickered down to the phone in Hank’s hands. “Trouble?” 

Hank shrugged. “We’ll see.” 

He decided to start with the voicemails. They were, unsurprisingly, all from Fowler. 

He played them on speaker. 

_ Call. Yesterday at 19:29. _

_ Hank. Did you just go AWOL from an active crime scene? Get back to the precinct right fucking now. I am done covering your ass.  _

The recording clicked.

_ Call. Yesterday at 21:43. _

_ Call me back, Hank. That’s a fucking order. _

Click.

_ Call. Yesterday at 23:13. _

_ I got an office full of CyberLife pen-pushers. Drag your ass outta whatever dive you’re holed up in, and get back here! I am not joking. _

He met Connor’s eyes. He guessed it was a good thing he had a reputation for being so fucking unreliable. It meant no one was looking too hard for them, whatever shitstorm CyberLife had tried to stir up. 

As far as Fowler was concerned, it was another in a long line of Hank Anderson having one foot firmly in a mental health crisis and another in the bottom of a fucking bottle. 

The recording clicked again. 

_ Call. Today at 04:57.  _

_ Hank.  _

Fowler’s tone was considerably less pissy.

_ Patrol found your car. Out in the middle of the fucking boonies. You… Call me back, okay? _

Click.

_ Call. Today at 05:33. _

_ Hank. I know you got attached to the kid, alright… I… shit. Whatever you’re doing, don’t fucking do it, okay? Do not do it. _

Click. 

_ Call. Today at 07:41.  _

_ There’s no fucking way you’re getting these messages, but if you are, call me. Shit.  _

Hank felt an uncomfortable amount of guilt churning up inside his gut. 

Connor was watching him with those big puppy eyes. “The captain is worried about you.” 

Hank rubbed at his eyes. “Yeah.” He didn’t really want to think about that. “They think you’re dead.” 

Connor nodded. “CyberLife won’t. They won’t stop looking.” 

Hank looked back at his phone. It was too fucking risky. 

A few of the other missed calls were from Chris. He hadn’t left any messages. 

Hank tapped at the side of his phone, weighing it up. 

They needed more intel, and he was ninety percent sure Chris wasn’t gonna sell them out. He felt guilty about Jeffrey, but he wouldn’t get it. He was a good guy, but he wouldn’t get  _ this _ .

“I’m gonna call Miller.” 

He punched the number in, and held it up to his ear, listened to the dial tone. It only rang once.

“It you?” Chris sounded tired. 

“Yeah, Chris, it’s me.” 

He felt Connor lean against him, ostentatiously and obviously listening in. He frowned over. Connor just raised his eyebrows and gestured to his deaf ear like it was obvious. Hank huffed, but angled the phone so it was easier for him to hear.

“Jesus Christ, man. Give me a minute,” Hank could hear rustling over line, and guessed Chris was scrambling to get out of earshot of anyone around him, “you alright?” 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m good.” 

There was a long pause. “Just you?”

“We’re good.” 

“Shit,” Chris said, on a breath. “Listen, Fowler’s on the warpath. CyberLife are all over this shit, and right now Fowler’s having fucking none of it but... He doesn’t…” Chris was panting a little, Hank wondered where he was going, “he’s got people searching the riverbeds, Hank, you get me?” 

“Shit.” Hank rubbed his free hand over his eyes. “Fuck.” 

“Yeah.” Chris dropped his voice. “Listen, this is… this is bigger than just the kid, yeah?”

Hank glanced at Connor, but he didn’t get any big signals to back the fuck out of this conversation. 

“Yeah.” 

“I fucking knew it. No way were CyberLife kicking up this much of a fuss over one android.”

Hank frowned. “What’s goin’ on over there?” 

“I don’t think Fowler’s caught on to what you're doing yet, or at least, he ain’t sayin’ he has, but maybe it’s above my pay grade. Whatever, he’s not cooperating yet with them so... You need back up, boss?” 

Hank rubbed his hand over his face again. Christ, he didn’t mean for so many people to get mixed up in this. “No. We got it.” 

“Then dump your fucking phone, man, before they trace it.”

“Fuck.” 

He felt Connor sit up, but Chris was still talking so whatever it was would have to wait. 

“Save my number, right? Case you need me. Get a burner phone.” 

Hank laughed. “What the fuck, Chris?” 

“I ain’t been watching Bond for thirty years for nothin’, boss.” 

Hank laughed again. “Thanks.”

“Be careful, Hank,” Chris said and hung up. 

Hank smiled to himself. 

He fished a half dried up biro out of his coat pocket and scrawled Chris’s number across the back of his hand. After a second, he copied out Jeffrey’s as well. 

Just in case. 

“You got a good memory, kid? Might need you as a phone book.”

He pulled the back off the phone, and dug about til he found the SIM and the battery. 

He looked over at Connor. “Kid?” 

Connor was staring into space. His LED flickering fast between red and yellow. 

“Hey, Connor, kid? Don’t… You know I hate this shit.” 

“They could trace your phone.” 

Hank held up the disassembled remnants of the phone. “Not any more.” Connor didn’t answer. “Connor?”

Connor’s eyes were tracking frantically over nothing. “It’s empty.”

“What?” 

“My head is empty.” 

“Kid, you are scaring the shit out of me.” 

Connor flickered back. “My uplink to CyberLife. She’s gone.” 

“She?” Hank stopped. "You know what, we'll talk about that later. What do you mean?" 

"My uplink to CyberLife, it… it isn't there anymore. I'm not… I'm…" 

"Deviant?" 

“I’m not a deviant,” Connor hissed. 

He hadn’t blinked in about five minutes and there was a weird whirring noise coming out of his chest. Hank vaguely wondered if this was what androids looked like when they were having a panic attack. 

Sumo had lumbered up from his position across Hank’s lap, looking between Hank and Connor as if he wanted an explanation for the escalating tension.

“Connor…” 

"I didn't mean to… You asked, and… I knew that I should report back, for deactivation. I… I knew that I should…" 

"Kid, you need to calm down." 

"I never told Amanda," the kid said quietly, like he was sharing a secret, "I… got the code, from the android at the Stratford Tower... but I didn't… I never opened the file."

"Why didn't you?"

Connor looked stricken. "I… I…“ 

He started blinking rapidly and his LED did a couple of fast yellow cycles. “But they could track your phone.” 

Hank just looked at him. He just dumbly held up the broken bits of phone. “Kid, it’s fine.” 

Connor was suddenly on his feet, with absolutely no sign that he hadn’t been able to walk an hour ago. 

Sumo leapt up too, tail wagging uncertainly, and it was just Hank lumbering unsteadily to his feet like he was eighty fucking years old. 

“Kid, what the… Connor!” 

Connor was off sprinting before he even finished. Sumo followed him, giving a couple of deep boofs that had androids around the room turning to look.

Hank didn’t have much choice but to follow them. 

Connor had made a beeline for where Markus was chatting with Josh and North.

From his position, a good fifteen feet behind Connor and the damn dog, Hank saw Markus’s eyes widen slightly as he got to his feet, and before he could even blink, North had a gun levelled at Connor’s chest. 

His gun, Hank realised as he stumbled to a halt next to Connor. Wasn’t that a kicker. 

Hank hooked his fingers behind Sumo’s collar to prevent any dog related disasters, and kinda wished he could do the same to Connor. 

“You’re back on your feet then,” Markus said mildly. 

“Listen, CyberLife will be coming here!” 

Markus frowned and nudged at North’s wrist until the gun was pointed firmly at the ground. “No, your tracker is deactivated. We checked.” 

Hank looked at him. “They had you microchipped? Like…” He kinda regretted the whole collar thing now. “Christ, they were already inside your head, where were you gonna go?” 

Connor turned to him, looking distinctly pissy. “Our present situation would seem to indicate the answer to that, Lieutenant. But that’s not what I’m talking about. My memory uploaded automatically when I was damaged. All of my memories.” 

Hank could see that Markus and North still hadn’t put it together, but he could see his own dawning realisation mirrored across Josh’s face. 

Markus was shaking his head slowly. “A data transfer that large… we’d’ve known about it.” 

Hank remembered the few seconds of blankness immediately after the shot, when he’d thought Connor was dead. “It uploaded at the crime scene.”

Connor nodded. “The Ferndale code was in my head. I don’t know how long it will take them to recognise it…” 

“Shit.” Markus closed his eyes. “Shit. We’ve got to get out of here.”

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry if this a little filler-y... 
> 
> I realised I kinda wrote myself into a hole that I needed to fill with a little bit of plot XD 
> 
> Continuing the theme, title is from the Editors song Belong.


End file.
